Google Maps to collect spatial responses in a survey environment

This paper examines the use of Google Maps-based tools to collect spatial responses from participants during academic research surveys conducted via the Internet. Using two recent examples from the University of East Anglia it discusses the online survey context and how Google Maps was used, issues surrounding the technical implementation of these tools, processing and use of the collected data, and concludes with considerations for future research that might employ similar methods

Children and their Families: Function of the Community

Hogg Foundation for Mental Healt

A Planning Template for Nonwork Travel and Transit Oriented Development, MTI Report 01-12

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) at San José State University assigned a project team to design a planning template for transit-oriented development (TOD) that incorporates an understanding of nonwork travel, that is, trips for shopping, eating out, and engaging in recreational and cultural activities. Nonwork trips are growing in signifigance and now account for four of every five trips. At the same time, TOD has become a popular planning response to the impacts of metropolitan growth. Some planners believe that TOD will induce more pedestrian and transit trips and will reduce the average length and frequency of household auto travel. This effect is assumed to result from improved accessibility to employment and nonwork venues located in compact, mixed-use centers. Planning professionals in many MPOs also suggest that if multiple centers are linked by high quality transit, such as light or heavy rail, access is enabled to the broad range of nonwork activities. The project arrived at these essential findings: (1) Venues for nonwork activities are very numerous and geographically dispersed. 2) The spatial environment for nonwork activities is the result of growing prosperity, technical innovation, and a dynamic, competitive marketplace. (3) The consumer marketplace will provide many more places to go than mass transit can cost-effectively serve. (4) Current metropolitan planning methods and modeling tools focus on the work trip and do not adequately account for the complexity of nonwork trips and their linkage to work trips. These findings support the need for a new regional planning process to complement current methods. One recommended approach is that metropolitan communities establish a Nonwork Travel Improvement Planning Process using a multidisciplinary expert advisory group interacting with a core, Internet-enabled, professional transportation planning staff. An iterative interaction across varied but relevant skill sets could be achieved through a Backcasting Delphi process. The focus of the interaction would be on understanding the ramifications of consumer and retail industry behavior for TOD and other new transportation strategies, and then assessing the available strategies for cost-effectiveness in reducing the impacts of growth and automobility in a complex and uncertain metropolitan market

Landscape planning to promote well being

There has been a rapid increase in knowledge regarding the importance of the external environment to our health. Eight characteristics of the outdoor environment (serene, wild, lush, spacious, the common, the pleasure garden, festive/ centre, and culture) have been identified as fulfilling recreational needs through a number of environmental psychology studies carried out at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden, between 1995 and 2005. The external environment has become an increasingly decisive factor in people’s choices regarding where to live and work; the landscape has become a competitive factor in attempts made by companies and local authorities to attract well-educated, mobile manpower and housing. Knowledge-based companies predominate in the Öresund Region of Sweden and Denmark, which at present has substantial recreational values making it an attractive area in which to live and work. The region’s annual population growth is approximately 20,000 to 25,000 inhabitants. The prime ministers of Sweden and Denmark have expressed a common objective that the Öresund Region be one of Europe’s cleanest metropolitan regions. The objective of this article is to present methods for implementing the eight characteristics as indicators for impact assessment in planning projects. The article presents case studies of the application of environmental impact assessments in the municipalities of Malmö and Svedala, which are situated in the immediate vicinity of the Öresund Bridge. Development plans are being evaluated through impact assessment. Mitigation and compensation measures are being created to achieve the environmental quality goals defined by the eight characteristics. The case studies referred to in this article are in very early planning phases, either the feasibility or pre-feasibility phase. This article does not present complete investigations of balancing, but discusses some principal ways of defining values and suggests measures for mitigating and compensating for negative impacts on existing values

Assessing Destination Competitiveness: An Application to the Hot Springs Tourism Sector

This paper proposes a model to identify the factors determining the competitiveness of the hot springs tourism sector, with particular application to Taiwan. The proposed conceptual framework brings together two approaches, namely the theories of industry organization (10) and the resource-based view (RBV). The proposition underlying this framework is that destination competitiveness is achieved by the adoption of policies and strategies aligned with market opportunities, drawing upon the unique or distinctive tourism features offered by the destination. It is proposed that three major influences are evident in the case of hot springs tourism, namely Tourism Destination Resources and Attractors, Tourism Destination Strategies and Tourism Destination Environments. An evaluation is provided of the administration of a three-round Delphi survey, which was intended to validate the determinants of destination competitiveness that were derived from the literature. Drawing upon the results of the pilot study it is concluded that the development of a sector-specific model of destination competitiveness is capable of capturing the nature and characteristics of the hot springs tourism sector